Report your Priceline successes discusion area.

mrdeepee

Below are some other results I'd like to share. Someone might find them useful xx

Destination: Fort Lauderdale in Florida
Type of accommodation: 3.5 Star Hotel
How many extra daily bids did you have available: 3
How much were your bids: Bids were £38, £42 and £45 final bid

I got the Marriott Ft Lauderdale North for a total price of £55.67 for a check in date of 28/03/2009. Cheapest price anywhere else at the time was £130. I could possibly have had more bids/day but I was going on a cruise and needed to stay close to Port Everglades. I therefore didn't want to risk playing round the zones too much.

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Destination: Glasgow
Type of Accommodation: 3 Star on PL although most other sites had the hotel as 4 star
How many extra daily bids did you have available: 1
How much were your bids: £55 and £50 final bid

Glasgow has only got one zone and that is the City Centre. My first bid of £55 for a 4 Star hotel was rejected. I then reduced my bid to £50 and included a 3 Star hotel in my search, and that was accepted. Total price came up to £62.41. I got the Thistle Hotel Glasgow and the cheapest price anywhere else at the time was £120. The hotel is classed as a 3 Star hotel in PL but every other site had it down as a 4 Star. I was staying for a night and check in date was 12/12/2009

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Destination: Belfast
Type of Accommodation: 3 Star
How many extra daily bids did you have available: 2
How much were your bids: £30, £35 and a final bid of £40

I got the Days Hotel Belfast for a check in date of 31/10/09 for a 2 night stay. Total price came up to £97.40. Cheapest anywhere else was £160.

dmg24

New York
3* Downtown-Soho Zone
Holiday Inn Downtown/ Soho
£47 per night (£58.99 including taxes)

Happy days!

dmg24

Me again!

Philadelphia
3.5* Downtown Zone
Sheraton Society Hill Hotel
£40 per night (£48.50 including taxes)

Loving the recession!

Just need to find two more nights in New York now. I had originally budgeted £600 for the six night trip, but so far have spent less than £220 on four nights. Now do I be a good little moneysaver for the last two nights ... or blow the lot?

Nordictat2

dmg, that's a great hotel in Philly. Well done

davetaylor

Good Morning!

In a nutshell I am looking to book a Central London Hotel for one night either for this evening, Monday or Tuesday (will know for sure which day in a few hours). It's going to be a special night, so I am looking for a great Hotel maybe 4 star but 5 start would be amazing. I am pretty flexible with area, although as close to central as possible.

I just wanted to ask, would you recommend any particular areas, and realistically, what sort of price should I be expecting to pay?

blindman

davetaylor wrote: »

Good Morning!

In a nutshell I am looking to book a Central London Hotel for one night either for this evening, Monday or Tuesday (will know for sure which day in a few hours). It's going to be a special night, so I am looking for a great Hotel maybe 4 star but 5 start would be amazing. I am pretty flexible with area, although as close to central as possible.

I just wanted to ask, would you recommend any particular areas, and realistically, what sort of price should I be expecting to pay?

Might be worth you looking at the LastMinute thread (post 304/5) to see if there are some hotels you can identify that are good value.

Look at Hotwire to see if there are 5* there that can be identified.

Where to stay? Depends waht you want to do as the Tube covers most areas.

If its a special night and the hotel has to be special then
have a look at the list of Hotels won to see if the 5* ones would be suitable
A 5* bid on PL gives you lots of free rebids.

With PL 4* hotels I would avoid Hammersmith, Docklands, Kensignton and Regents Park areas as hotels won tend to be on the outer edges of these areas.

Have a look at the Hotwire lists and see if there are any 5* for your dates that be identified.

I take it you have read my PL guide and also the hotwire guide ?

blindman

davetaylor wrote: »

Good Morning!

In a nutshell I am looking to book a Central London Hotel for one night either for this evening, Monday or Tuesday (will know for sure which day in a few hours). It's going to be a special night, so I am looking for a great Hotel maybe 4 star but 5 start would be amazing. I am pretty flexible with area, although as close to central as possible.

I just wanted to ask, would you recommend any particular areas, and realistically, what sort of price should I be expecting to pay?

BTW
This should be in the Discussion thread

pcg2001

davetaylor wrote: »

In a nutshell I am looking to book a Central London Hotel for one night either for this evening, Monday or Tuesday (will know for sure which day in a few hours). It's going to be a special night, so I am looking for a great Hotel maybe 4 star but 5 start would be amazing. I am pretty flexible with area, although as close to central as possible.

Others may be able to help you with more specific info, but with my limited knowledge I would advice you to have a look at http://www.betterbidding.com/index.php?showforum=177& and http://www.betterbidding.com/index.php?showtopic=123&You will see recent bids in the US priceline and the type of hotel. You can also see the list of hotels. For London, though I have never won for the price I wanted, I would see if the x-star and above hotels in the area are interesting for you (for instance there is a Copthorne Tara and a NH Jolly I would rather not risk) and exclude areas where your risk somehting you don't want. Then think a bit about your strategy and the max price - for isntance the prices at which 5 stars have been won are in my opinion too high, so I stick with 4 stars.

Have you studyed the guide by blindman? http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=233768 It should really be posted on the first post, since this is a really good help to get you started.

If starting with London is too overwhelming for you and you would really really like to secure something special, the advice is to look at hotwire (lists at betterbidding as well), lastminute secre hotels (lots of help here at MSE), the hilton 50% weekend sale, etc.

PS: I think you mean you want to book today?! I do hope someone really experienced with london can come up with a safe strategy for you... My post was only to get you started researching and you don't seem to have that much time for that....

PS2: I was writing this as blindman was posting, so sorry for the duplicate info.

PS3: Blindman does have a point about the discussion area, mea culpa as well. Also there are 3 main priceline threads, this one with sucesses, the one for discussion and blindman's own guide. I think a mod could perhaps create a better arrangement... and if blindman is a mod, that would be even better!

davetaylor

First of all apologies for posting in the wrong section. Thanks for all your advice. Especially Blindman, I have not seen your step by step guides and they were most helpful. I think I am going to use Lastminute and Top Secret Hotel. I just feel more comfortable with that. Then again the starting price for a 4 star Top Secret London Hotel is around £62.00 so I may just try a stupid bid of say £30.00 on Priceline first, I guess I have nothing to lose!

stoneman

dmg24 wrote: »

Me again!

Philadelphia
3.5* Downtown Zone
Sheraton Society Hill Hotel
£40 per night (£48.50 including taxes)

Loving the recession!

Just need to find two more nights in New York now. I had originally budgeted £600 for the six night trip, but so far have spent less than £220 on four nights. Now do I be a good little moneysaver for the last two nights ... or blow the lot?

I am from philly so if you want any pointers as to where are the best shopping areas or best tourist things while avoiding some of the rubbish then feel free to ask. Have a good trip
P.S. clear your storage, attempted to send you PM